


We Expected Something More

by pocky_slash



Category: West Wing
Genre: First Time, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Ocean, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam makes a choice. So does Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Expected Something More

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://spybarbie.livejournal.com/profile)[**spybarbie**](http://spybarbie.livejournal.com/) requested Sam/Will and the song "Start a War" by The National. This sort of ran away from me after that. Many thanks to the always wonderful [](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/)**solsticezero** for the beta. This is actually _canon compliant_. Fancy that!

Will flies out to California the day after Sam's election.

Leo tells him not to. Josh tells him not to. Toby tells him not to.

CJ tells him that sometimes you have to make a choice and kisses him on the cheek, but she doesn't tell him not to go. It might have been kinder, though--he knows he's walking into a situation that he will only lead to loss, no matter which side wins.

***

The flight out is long and tense, as if it's keyed into his nerves. Turbulence, crying children, fluctuating cabin pressure--Will hates flying, which isn't strictly true, but feels true as his hands tighten over his armrests and his ears sing in painful protest and his mind counts down to landing. The hours are trickling down. The terrible in-flight coffee isn't helping his anxious stomach or the thrum of unease just under his skin.

He bites at his nails and the skin surrounding them. He wrings his newspaper between his hands. He just barely keeps his stomach from revolting as he's inched closer and closer to his destination.

***

Being on the ground isn't much better. There's no one waiting at the airport, of course, and it's not until he sitting in his rental car that he realizes he has no idea where he's going. Sam's been living out of hotels. It's been less than forty-eight hours since the end of the election, but Will knows he'll already be cleared out of wherever it is he was last staying. There's the apartment he was renting for residency purposes, just around the corner from his parents' house, but, somehow, Will doubts he'll be there, either.

He sits behind the wheel of his aging rented sedan and rests his head on the steering wheel. He doesn't know why he's here. He doesn't know what good it will do. He doesn't know why he thinks that he'll be able to change something when he's only known Sam a scant few months, when it's possible he never knew Sam at all.

He turns the ignition, and he starts to drive.

***

Elsie's new boyfriend's questionably legal computer skills are what save him in the end. A tiny house on the beach, deed held by Norman Seaborn, more out-of-the-way than Will had imagined a house in Orange County could get. The street it's on isn't even on his road map, so he follows his intuition down the sandy road as the sun begins to set. It would be beautiful if it wasn't for the heavy weight of dread settling all around Will.

The driveway is nearly hidden by overgrown weeds and bushes, but it definitely looks like a car has been by recently. Will turns down it, bumping along the mixed sand and gravel for what feels like miles. The small blue house doesn't appear until he's turned a corner past some sand dunes, but when he does see it, he hits the breaks.

There's a silver sedan parked outside of it. Sam's rental car.

Will is suddenly not sure what he's doing--no, it's past "not sure," Will has no fucking idea what he's doing, what he hopes to do, what he hopes to prove.

Still, he hits the gas and parks his car next to Sam's.

He stands in front of the door, not sure what he's expecting.

He knocks.

After a lifetime of anxious breaths, a lifetime of fingernails cutting into his palms, the door opens and Sam Seaborn sticks his head out.

"I didn't think they'd send you," Sam says.

"They didn't think I should come at all," Will responds.

"They were right," Sam says.

He shuts the door in Will's face.

***

Will sits on the aging wicker chair on the porch. He doesn't have anywhere else to go. He doesn't actually have a plan. He still doesn't know why he's here.

He watches the rest of the sunset from Sam's porch, listens to the sounds of the ocean at nightfall. It's beautiful, in a twisted, rundown sort of way. It makes something sharp flare up in his chest. It's the same feeling he got when the election board called the race for Webb. It's the same feeling he gets when he remembers that night in the bar and the way Sam seemed to open up under his examination.

He falls asleep to the sound of the waves.

***

Will doesn't know what time it is. It's still dark. His neck hurts from sleeping slumped in the wicker chair and he can feel the indentations from the wood on his forearms. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and when they come back into focus, they land on Sam standing silently at the door.

"You were supposed to go home," Sam says.

"I don't have a home anymore," Will says. It's not what he means to say. It's not a truth he had planned on revealing to anyone, really, but definitely not to Sam Seaborn.

Sam just bites his lip and nods, eyes downcast. Will sits up and rolls his shoulders.

"Come inside," Sam says. "The couch is more comfortable than that chair."

If Will was Josh, he'd probably say something like, 'It's about time!' If Will was Toby, he never would have allowed Sam to close the door in the first place.

But Will isn't either of them. He doesn't have those ties to Sam, he barely has any ties to Sam, he doesn't know what he’s doing, so he silently follows Sam into the sparse living room and sits on the couch.

He's asleep again before Sam can even pull a blanket over his shoulders.

***

Will wakes with the dawn and spends a moment remembering where he is and what he's done. He's used to living out of hotels, moving from place to place. He hasn't taken the time to get used to his surroundings since Brussels. It's all pointless, when he's just going to pack up and leave again, anyway.

The living room--Sam's living room--is decorated in light blues and a cheerful nautical theme. There's a photo on the mantle of what can only be a young Sam standing on a dock in front of a sailboat. He has the same eyes and the same smile and Will has to look away before he does something ridiculous like scream or leave. He settles for wandering the small house, running his fingers over surfaces that are still dusty and frozen in time.

Princeton and Duke and New York and DC. Will wonders when Sam was last in this house. He wonders if Sam's parents have bothered to use it since.

The door to the bedroom is open and Will can't help but stick his head inside. Sam is sleeping, still, the early morning light playing across his face in a way that brings that sharp ache back to Will's chest.

He closes the door and swallows the lump in his throat and returns to the kitchen, blinking away a pain behind his eyes that he's afraid to name.

***

"I made breakfast."

Sam blinks at him long and slow, his eyelashes dancing across his cheekbones. His mouth is twisted into something that might be a frown or a surprised smile, a confusing amalgamation of both. He hesitantly takes a seat at the breakfast bar.

"Thanks," he says, and Will doesn't quite smile, but the furrow in his brow finally disappears. He puts a plate in front of Sam--scrambled eggs and toast, the only edible things he could find that weren't cans of soup and cereal--and leans against the counter sipping his coffee. He's already picked at his own breakfast, not that his stomach would settle enough to accept it. Coffee's not much better, of course, but it's a good substitute for the sleep he missed.

"There's not much to do here," Sam admits once he's done eating, and that answers one of Will's questions: No, they won't be talking about it. Not yet.

"That's okay," Will says.

"I was planning on getting groceries and maybe taking a walk," he says.

"That's okay," Will says. It will give him some time to figure how what he's going to say to Sam when they actually do talk about it.

Sam tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. "You can come with me," he says.

"That's--" Will stops. "Okay," he says. "Okay."

***

It feels... strange.

Will hasn't paused, hasn't _slept_ in what feels like years, but here he is with Sam, going to the store, buying groceries, eating a leisurely lunch at a sandwich shop. They don't talk much, but this place with no ringing phones, no disgruntled interns, no catastrophes seems so foreign that Will wouldn't know what to say anyway. He can speak four languages, but the language of relaxation isn't one of them.

Stranger still is the fact that he meanders through his world of errands and trivialities with Sam Seaborn. Sam who is beautiful and brilliant and has always been just a little bit _better_ than Will, whom Will has always seen as smarter and quicker and and more worthy. Sam, who was one of Bartlet's Boys and who wrote speeches that made Will's knees weak. Sam, who is now standing next to Will and comparing two types of tomatoes.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Sam asks. Will doesn't know what to say, but something must show on his face because Sam says. "I hope chicken is okay."

Will nods and follows Sam back towards the butcher section. It's easy. It's second nature.

He doesn't think about that too closely.

***

They eat dinner on the beach behind the house. Sam grills the chicken and vegetables and they sit on patio furniture that's pressed unevenly into the sand. Conversation is minimal; Will still doesn't know what to say. Sam doesn't seem to mind the silence, his eyes focused on the waves as he absently taps his fork on his plate. Still, he waits until Will has finished eating before he gets to his feet and walks out towards the shoreline.

Will is barely two steps behind him.

"I thought I'd get sick of it," Sam says when they reach the place where tide recedes, the sand damp and frothy in front of them. "All through the campaign they just dropped me in front of the coast. It made me seem youthful, they said, like I belonged out in the waves. They said it would be appealing to the younger demographic."

Will nods. It was a good strategy, even if it was an obvious one. Even if none of the strategies helped anything in the end. More important than that, though, is that Sam is talking about the election for the first time since Will turned up.

"I never thought to tell them that it wasn't a lie," Sam says. "I never thought to break in with, 'Actually, I spent all my free time in the ocean when I was a kid. Actually, you're not crafting a half-truth but exposing a long forgotten one.' I don't know why I let them take the lead like that. I don't know why I let them tell me who I was and what I wanted."

Sam turns to him, the sun setting behind him, the last rays of light making him glow with a warmth that makes Will's palms itch. The sun is warming their backs, the wind is musing Sam's hair, and Sam's eyes are boring into him.

 _Oh,_ Will thinks breathlessly. _Oh._

"I'm doing things because I want to, now. I'm not letting anyone tell me what's right anymore."

And because Will has always done what he wants, because Will has never hidden from himself, when Sam's hand settles on the back of his neck, Will doesn't hesitate in kissing back.

***

Will's shirt is left on a plastic patio chair, but the rest of their clothing makes it as far as the house. As soon as the screen door slams behind them, Sam loses his shirt and starts on Will's pants and for the first time, Will doesn't wonder what he's doing, why he's here. He _knows_. It's not this--it's not about the stupid crush that Will has had on Sam since Sam walked into a mattress factory in Newport Beach or even about getting laid for the first time in far too long. This is about being yourself and using your talents and living your fucking life.

He knows what he wants to say.

He lets Sam take him into the bedroom and fuck him anyway.

***

It's still dark when Sam wakes up. Will never really went to sleep in the first place.

Sam finds him in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar and drinking a cup of coffee.

"You can leave the White House and you can leave writing speeches and you can pretend that it's never what you wanted, but I think we both know that's not true," Will says.

The sleep-softened smile on Sam's face disappears.

"Will," Sam says. There's an edge to his voice, but Will ignores it.

"You can stay here, in this summer house, and pretend you're still the same boy in the pictures, but it would be a lie," Will says. "You offered to run for Wilde because you believed in the system and in the country and in what's right and in Jed Bartlet. You offered to run because you believe in what can be accomplished by those who truly fight for it. You're still that person. It doesn't mean you're not the little boy that loved the ocean, it means that boy has grown up. You have responsibilities."

"Fuck you," Sam says.

It's very hard for Will not to remind Sam that he already did.

"Come back with me," Will says. Because Sam is better than this. Sam could change the world if he put his mind to it. Sam has all of this _potential_ \--it pours off of him in waves and it makes Will’s stomach hurt when he thinks of the enormity of it. Sam can be President one day. Sam can do anything, but one misstep and he’s going to force himself into this life of stagnation and mediocrity and it’s not that Will wants to tell Sam what to do so much as make Sam realize everything that he _can_ do.

The fury in Sam’s eyes says that Sam doesn’t see it that way.

"No," Sam says. "I've made my choice. I'm done being who everyone wants me to be. I'm done sacrificing the greater good for the good we can sell to Congress. I'm done taking the hits for someone else. I'm just _tired_ of it all."

"You're scared," Will says. "You took a risk and you failed and instead of getting up, you're staying down in the dirt. You're better than that."

"You're the only one who thinks so," Sam says. "If you go back there, I guarantee you'll feel the same in two, three, four years time. It will wring you out like it wrung me out. It will suck the joy out of the things you love. It will leave you with nothing but a job that breaks your spirit again and again and expects you to get back up each time."

Will puts his coffee cup on the counter and stands up. It hurts and something in his chest snaps and falls and breaks, but he does it anyway. "I'm leaving in the morning. You can come with me, or you can stay here. I won't be the one losing sleep over it if you do."

He turns to leave the kitchen, to go out to his car, maybe, and see how soon he can book himself a flight back to DC. Sam grabs his wrist before he can go.

"You could stay," Sam says.

Will turns around slowly.

The malice has left Sam's eyes. The pain has drained away. He's open and honest and he's asking Will to stay with him. No one else has ever asked that before.

Will can imagine staying. It's easy. He can imagine getting used to the inside of a building, creating a routine with Sam, spending a year, two, three in one place without thinking of what's going to come next. He can imagine a life where he works in a law office or doing freelance writing or maybe teaching. The sort of life that normal people have, the sort of life that involves grocery shopping and long lunches and vacation and getting a decent amount of sleep.

He can imagine it, but he doesn't think it could ever feel real.

"I've made my choice too," Will says quietly. He gently extracts his wrist from Sam's hand and heads for his car.

He doesn't kiss Sam goodbye.

***

There are sixty-seven missed calls on Will's cellphone and his voicemail box is full. He doesn't bother listening to any of this messages, just turns his phone off again and sticks it back in his small suitcase as he waits for his flight to board. He thinks about calling his father or his sister, but his suitcase stays closed and his phone stays off until he gets back to DC.

This time, there is someone waiting for him at the airport.

"You made the right choice," CJ says when he steps out of the gate.

"Did I?" Will asks.

"Whatever choice you made would have been the right one," CJ says.

"Neither of them feel like it," Will says.

"Welcome to life," CJ says. "C'mon. Let's get a drink before we go back."

***

For the second day in a row, Will takes a long, leisurely lunch.

It's the last one he has for a long time.


End file.
